


my loveline seems intwined with death

by riverbed



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Anxiety, Blow Jobs, First Time, Hand Jobs, M/M, Oral Sex, Porn with Feelings, this is so incredibly indulgent i'm sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-04
Updated: 2016-07-04
Packaged: 2018-07-19 23:34:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7382044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riverbed/pseuds/riverbed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Do you mind the company?”</p><p>Ben shook his head before he allowed himself to think that he might indeed mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	my loveline seems intwined with death

**Author's Note:**

> two things: a) ben is absolutely a virgin before this, more out of disinterest than anything else and b) title is courtney barnett's
> 
> comment if you like this wild shit it's probably gonna end up being a series of weird tension prequels and other slice-of-life camera flashes of these two fools bc i'm in love with both of them despite my better judgement

Ben was anxious. There was a scent of death on the horizon, something sick and tangible. He had taken to rising before it was expressly necessary, coming down to see the sunrise from the water. Normally it calmed him, cleared his head, but this morning he found that the air was thick with the distinct tinge of destruction, and his mind clouded with it, and he was unable to quite get through the fog.

He stood at the water’s edge, and then he sat, trying to quell the rising panic that threatened to close his throat. After years of practice he could usually push this down but this seemed to be a special case. He was glad he had come here today - if he focused on the river hard enough he could imagine synchronizing it with his blood, his breathing, flowing easy and effortless. The camp as he’d left had already been stirring even in this early hour and he’d run off swift and silent before anybody could catch and interrogate him. Tensions were high. The men could sense the dread coming off the officers who spent time close to Washington. The man himself stayed holed up and relatively silent but Ben knew his tics and he knew when Washington was nervous and trying to hide it for the sake of appearance. It unsettled him, such an imposing man rocked in his stoic hardness. Washington was more than a man so often that when he acted human it seemed a reduction.

A battle was anticipated, or what Washington hoped would not be allowed to break out into one. Patriot forces in a company marching a few miles away from the fort would clash with Hessians in less than a day’s time. Ben had the awful suspicion there would be unspeakable bloodshed. Washington expressed continued and unwavering confidence in General Lee but Ben and the others’ had waned - Hamilton and Caleb were vocal in their disagreement, but Tallmadge and the young Marquis de Lafayette had an unspoken understanding, and they’d exchanged many a knowing look across the table over the past couple days while the two rowdier men ignited Washington’s well-tamed temper. Even Anna, still new to the fort and unused to the pettiness of men bickering over strategy, more often than not shook her head and let the fire stoke in silence, opting not to intervene but no doubt listening intently. Ben knew her better than to think she wasn’t keenly interested.

There was a rustling in the brush behind him and Ben started as Lafayette emerged from the trees on the hill, clad in only his undershirt and breeches, his thick stockings slipped down loose around his calves. The morning was warm for October, even with the sun still low in the sky, and he wasn’t wearing shoes, his toes curling into the grass littered with fallen pine needles as he descended the slope. He grinned brightly at Ben as he approached him, looking perfectly at ease although Ben was blushing something fierce. It was odd to see the Marquis undressed, as he was so used to his quiet composure, his buttoned-up decorum. Without his wig his natural hair cascaded down to the nape of his neck, dark yellow curls lobbed to hit his shoulders. Ben had seen it before of course but combined with the lack of his uniform it struck him as something forbidden, and it made his stomach turn uncomfortably, forced him to look away.

“What brings you here?” Ben asked, and then he felt stupid, because he’d seen the basin in Lafayette’s arms. But Lafayette didn’t seem to notice, just hummed before he answered, setting the container down. “Fetching water for my tent,” he said. “But it can wait! I was not expecting to find you here. Do you mind the company?”

Ben shook his head before he allowed himself to think that he might indeed mind. Lafayette was so kind, and he bristled at the thought of turning such an earnest man away. His honest counsel had been the cause for the settling of more than one of Washington’s moods, and Ben had observed that he had much to learn from the Marquis. His exotic customs were sometimes strange - Ben was educated, yes, but he had never known the sort of wealth Lafayette enjoyed, evident in the way he brushed his coat with neatly manicured fingers, the way he walked with posture that betrayed no sign of being in the midst of fighting a war. Being around Lafayette was like being at a party. He lit up a room, or calmed it, depending. He had tried to catch Ben alone before but Ben was skittish and unsure of his attentions. Lafayette was still a new friend and though he knew he could trust the French there was something about the man’s eyes that made him uneasy - it was like he could read anything off you, given the opportunity. Ben preferred not to let anybody get too close, with few exceptions. Anna had that skill as well, had always been able to tell him what he was thinking. 

In any case, now they were here. Lafayette sat down upon the grass next to Ben and Ben winced when he thought how his breeches would stain from the mud. Lafayette chuckled at him, pulling his knees to his chest. “I have another pair,” he said, a sympathetic note in his voice. “It is worth it to watch the sunrise.”

Ben nodded and looked out toward it. The dark was starting to lift quicker, the color of the day settling over them in its stead. An orange glow, deep with the amber of autumn. Streaks of golden light sliced the trunks of the trees and cut into the flow of the river. Ben sighed, studying the water, clear, green with the reflection of the canopy. He shut his eyes and breathed in the smell of fallen fruit, letting the crisp bite of the air itself flood his lungs.

“How are you, Benjamin?” Lafayette was looking at him, concerned, when Ben glanced over. His head was tilted and his hair cascaded over his shoulder, and his eyes… they were wide, shined gold like champagne. Ben swallowed and turned back to the river, thinking the question over. How was he? He had no idea, in truth, it was something he didn’t let himself think about. It seemed as if Lafayette already knew. He clicked his tongue, and looked out in the same direction Ben was. “You carry a lot of weight here,” he told him, and it sounded so sad that Ben turned back again, startled.

“We all do,” he insisted, confused. Of course he did, they all had their responsibilities. Ben knew the sacrifices of war, had been willing to make them from the get. Lafayette himself was slumming in their army, confined with dozens of smelly men an ocean away from his family. There was no time to worry about what they’d left behind - they were ushering in a new era and could only look ahead. It was a surefire way to self-destruct, studying what a man had lost. Ben had never had anybody, anyway, just his friends, and they were still more or less alive, though the last attempt on Abe had been a close one. They were making it. He didn’t have energy to parse it in any more depth.

Lafayette returned his gaze. “Yours is far greater than any man should carry.” And there was that knowing look, the same one he gave Ben over Washington’s map table, a sheepish smile to accompany the determined set of his eyes. Ben realised the depth of them, the promise in them. Lafayette let his face soften, let himself smile wider, and he reached out and touched his hand to Ben’s thigh. His legs were splayed out in the grass and he shivered, feeling the pressure of each of Lafayette’s fingertips in the muscle at his inner thigh. His breeches felt thin, suddenly, not enough fabric to stop the heat pouring from the other man into his skin. He shifted his hips, opening his body despite his nerves, but Lafayette left his hand resting where it was. He looked at him, confused.

Lafayette’s eyes flashed. “I guess I didn’t take you for the type,” he said, low, and Ben breathed out hard, let his shoulders roll back over his palms, planted flat in the grass. “Not usually,” he confirmed. And it was true - but this wasn’t a typical circumstance for him. Normally he couldn’t care less for romance - or whatever this was, lust, he supposed - but his blood was rolling with adrenaline and he was feeling daring and bold with Lafayette, the bloodthirsty but well-mannered Frenchman, at his side. His hands were elegant, fingers strong and lengthy, and Ben shifted up again, bucked his hips for the rising hand on his thigh. Lafayette was going too slowly, the heat in his palm shifting by the inch closer to his groin. Ben’s stomach was doing the thing it had done a few minutes ago, turning over and over, but the way his belly tightened up as Lafayette closed the gap between their lips was intoxicating. He craved more, brought his hands up to fist in Lafayette’s shirt as he kissed him.

Even Lafayette’s tongue was slow. It led and taunted him, flicking against his own and tasting him, seeming to savor him. Ben went dizzy. The steady lap of Lafayette’s tongue was soothing, lulling, and yet it made him stir, built a fire to stoke in his belly, at first a comfortable warmth that grew hotter and hotter until it was burning him from the inside out. Desperate to breathe, he pulled back, steadying himself with a palm flat against Lafayette’s chest. Lafayette didn’t let him go far, leaning in to nuzzle at Ben’s neck, pushing into him until Ben yielded and lay back in the grass. Lafayette kept moving, curling up into Ben’s side and then halfway on top of him, pressing their bodies close. Ben felt the heat of him, the strength of him, as Lafayette nudged his legs apart with his knee. Ben whimpered, rutting against the well-muscled thigh without thinking, and he could feel Lafayette smile against his neck. His breath came in hot bursts on the sensitive skin below his ear and Lafayette nibbled and then sucked at the spot, and Ben shivered; never had he been paid attention like this, never felt so thoroughly ravaged. Lafayette had overtaken him, overridden his senses, everything in him screaming how right this felt, how perfect the way his hand curled around Ben’s side as it slipped beneath his shirt and explored. His fingers singed Ben’s skin as they roved over it, already heated all over. Lafayette tapped against each of his ribs, skating languidly over the muscles of his abdomen. Ben’s body jerked in response, and he tipped his head back, letting the damp from the riverbed soak into his hair. He smelled the sharpness of the wet grass, the musk of sweat between the both of them. His hips were working against Lafayette of their own accord, and his frame was solid and his weight so good, the friction between them increasingly frenzied. Lafayette was the picture of composure, moving his hips in a slow grind to contrast Ben’s quick, unsure movements.  His bones were singing for it, this excruciating magnetism yanking him again and again toward Lafayette. Ben thought about his body, about all the times he’d seen it and not appreciated it, the muscles at the backs of his thighs, the way his clavicles showed above the collar of a shirt without a cravat. He remembered the figure he cut when he moved with a weapon in his hand, quick and practiced, and licked his lips, his mouth suddenly dry. Ben reached around in a burst of wild adrenaline to grasp Lafayette’s buttocks through his breeches and Lafayette gasped, the first falter in the smooth motion of his hips.

He muttered something in French and ground down long and hard against Ben and Ben groaned, through gritted teeth. Lafayette’s hands went to the laces at his crotch and Ben held his breath as he worked the fly open, afraid of what would come out if he let himself speak. He tried to divorce himself from the feeling of Lafayette’s fingers on the bare skin of his hip, but the callouses on his fingers raised goosebumps on the back of his neck.

“Is this okay?” Lafayette asked, and Ben almost missed it for how quiet, how unsure, it sounded. Lafayette had propped himself up on an elbow, and was looking down at him, but his hand was still dangerously close to where Ben wanted it most and he couldn’t think, could hardly breathe.

“I…” he stammered, trying to figure out how he felt about this, really examine the situation. He had never considered this, had never been interested enough in someone, he supposed. Lafayette aroused his interests, made him wonder. He swallowed. He wanted to know where this would go, with Lafayette’s champagne promise eyes, but the nerves were back, the unease, the insecurity. “I’ve never done this before,” he forced out, and Lafayette smiled, not cruel, not bloodthirsty.

“Let me,” he said, and traced the flat plane of Ben’s hip with a flourish of his fingertips and got his hand round him, tested and weighed him in his palm. Ben gasped, the feeling new, the feeling overwhelming. Suddenly all the doubt was gone, washed from him as if he’d been caught in a heavy rain, Lafayette’s pull like wine soaking through his being.

Lafayette pumped at him a couple times and hummed as he played his fingers across him, apparently testing his reaction. Ben was lightheaded, so beyond unbelievable the sensation even with the slightest brush.

It was difficult not to feel silly, reacting so viscerally to Lafayette’s manipulations. But it felt so good, divine and luxurious, and Lafayette was slow and patient and read him like a book, just like he read him in any other situation. He whispered at Ben as he took him apart and Ben tried to respond, he tried, but it was hard to even breathe through the pleasure. He set his lips against Lafayette’s jaw and bit and sucked, transferring the pressure through himself and onto Lafayette’s skin. He relished each gasp and sigh he drew from him, every little sign that he was coming apart like Ben was. He was suddenly overcome with the need to please him as much as he was being pleased, driven and determined. Lafayette seemed amenable, kneeling up slightly and opening his hips to grant Ben access, and Ben reached up to fumble with his fastenings.

“I don’t -” Ben started, but Lafayette shushed him with a sweep of his thumb across the head of Ben’s cock and a quick, searing kiss pressed to the corner of his mouth. “Give me you, love,” Lafayette assured him, tugging and making Ben gasp. “Whatever feels right.”

So Ben touched, tentative, his fingers light and dextrous, and he got more soft gasps, more sweet sighs, even a few excited, breathy moans. He tried to replicate what Lafayette was doing to him but he seemed to like it quicker, a little harder, and when Ben picked up the pace and applied more pressure Lafayette responded enthusiastically, and Ben tried to swat his hand away so he could focus. Lafayette sat up, leaned back on his haunches and Ben followed, getting up on an elbow to stroke him through it. He pushed Ben’s shirt up, roamed around his abdomen with his hands, and Ben watched his face, which looked rapt, his jaw slack and his eyes forced open the slightest and trained upon him. The way he looked at Ben, a faint blush painting the tops of his cheeks across his nose and softly down the pale expanse of his collarbone, set Ben’s nerves alight. Lafayette’s lips were parted temptingly and Ben leaned up further to tempt him down to him again, and Lafayette got the hint, cupped his cheek in his hand and then slid it back into his loose hair for a passionate kiss, and then Ben felt warm fluid on his hand, on his belly, and Lafayette ground fast against him a few times and moaned, seemingly unwilling to pull back and separate their bodies.

Ben panted and he pawed at Lafayette’s back, his shoulders, but Lafayette kissed his neck slow and luxurious, unerring. Ben groaned and pushed at his shoulder, meaning for him to sit up, back off, but Lafayette slid down his body instead, unbuttoning his shirt as he went and mouthing along the musculature of Ben’s chest as he exposed it. As his shirt fell open at his sides Lafayette bit gently into the flesh beneath his chest and Ben hissed, arching up to alleviate some of the incredible pain and in the process his groin came into contact with Lafayette’s stomach, and the sharp friction of the fabric of his shirt was borderline painful, and he gasped, bit down on his lip to quell the scream that threatened to rip through him. Lafayette huffed a laugh against the place his mouth had been, a cool snicker over the warmed wet skin. He laved his tongue along the bite mark, and Ben dropped a hand down to cradle his head, threaded his fingers through his hair, feeling the silk of his curls. He tugged them gently, letting them bounce back against his hand.

Lafayette pressed his nose into the hair at the base of Ben’s cock, the slight give of the low portion of his belly, and breathed, deep and slow. Ben synced with him, letting his chest rise and fall in rhythm, willing himself to relax. He caught Lafayette’s eye, and there was only the briefest flash of a smile as warning before he sunk down on Ben’s cock, swallowed him to the root. His mouth was hot, his lips plush like velvet as he pulled up to suckle around the head. Ben howled and shoved his unoccupied fist in his own mouth to muffle it. He thought of camp and home and fear and Washington, but it was no use, even with blood-curdling terror flooding his blood it wouldn’t freeze because he was so  _ hot, _ so full and open and he whined as Lafayette swallowed around him and pulled off of him gently, smiling sated up at him as he wiped the corner of his mouth. His hand was a steady weight on Ben’s hip, an unmoving presence. Ben let himself arch up to fill his palm, showing his craving for continued touch. He let himself be vulnerable for just a moment, let Lafayette stroke along the exposed portion of his hip and thigh underneath his open breeches.

Lafayette hummed and absently pressed on Ben’s thigh, played with the fray at the inner hem of his clothing. He pressed a long, slow, closed-mouthed kiss to Ben’s hip, just to the side of where his softened cock curled to rest against him, and the sound carried through to Ben’s stomach, making his blood beat hard once or twice more. Lafayette rested his chin on his belly and looked up at him, stroking two fingers down his chest. “Good, Monsieur Tallmadge?” he lilted, and the soft repetitious touch was so soothing that Ben found he did feel good, for the first time in a while, swimming through a thick ocean of hazy warmth to answer and Lafayette turned into him, settling into the grass.

Tonight the horror would set back in and blood would be shed in the skirmish, but it was still morning, and there was something hopeful about the sunrise.


End file.
